Spain’s tourism sector has experienced unprecedented growth over the past few years and international tourism is booming.

In 2017, the number of nights spent in a Spanish hotel by rose by 2.7% to 340 million. A breakdown of the figures show that overnight stays by tourists (non-Spaniards) rose by 3.73% to 225million, while occupancy rates for residents grew by 0.7% to 114.2 million.

Over 82 million foreigners came to Spain in 2017, representing a rise of 8.9% compared with 2016 to reach a new record, according to the business lobby Alliance for Excellence in Tourism (Exceltur).

Although tourism is continuing to rise, occupancy rates are far from the 7.4% growth seen in 2016; this could be down to the growing popularity of holiday home rental sites and holidaymakers snubbing the traditional package holidays which over past decades have become synonymous with Spain.

In the region of Catalunya, the number of hotel stays decreased by 10.7% and by 14.5% in terms of foreign visitor numbers (likely due to political uncertainties).

Following a bumper year for international tourism, Spain is now the second most popular tourist destination in the world – just falling behind France who took the number one spot.

Tourism is an important and reliable source of income for Spain totaling €134 billion and accounting for 11.5% of the country’s GDP. Industry growth resulted in 77,501 new jobs last year, according to Exceltur.